The Flipside
by The-Despondent-Insomniac
Summary: Hearing what you always wanted doesn't really matter if it's the wrong man whispering the words...
1. Chapter 1

She tries to make it work, she really does. For **his **sake. But deep down, she knows she settled. And she hates herself for it. Hates herself with a loathing so deep she feels she can hardly _breathe_ around the choke hold it has on her throat.

A few words: forever, love, human and she gave in. Weak, selfish, B.L.I.N.D.

They had never needed words before, and she always knew how he felt. But all this one, this not-really-her-doctor, had to do was whisper a few to her and she betrayed Him. Kissed the other one and let Him walk away.

But she tries. Tries to smile, tries to kiss him without wishing he was someone else, tries not to wince when he hugs her; so similar but so, **so** different that she _aches_ with the loss of what's not there.

She knows he sees the lines of strain around her eyes where she tries to smile when she pulls back from kissing him, knows he's trying too. They both are. For **his** sake. This was his gift to them, but still, it's not enough and with every touch of this one's fingers, every breath that's not His on her lips, she crumbles a little more inside. Because this time she knows, He isn't coming back. This time there are no more chances to make it right. Its just her and him. Alone. In a universe that wasn't meant for either of them to exist in.

She should have fought. Made Him see. Taken his hand and refused to let go. She knows he wouldn't have argued really. He gave her this chance, thought it was what she SHOULD have... but she knows, deep down he wanted her to kiss Him. Choose Him. Go back to running for their lives. Holding one another for hours on end. Touching automatically, grabbing hands immediately. Their mad, crazy, never ending insane ride of a life.

And she wishes she had. He's all she's ever wanted. All she's ever needed to **breathe** in life.

And he's gone. The end.

But she can't give up. Goes to work and tires herself to the bone; until her hair is a dishevelled frizzy mess and her clothes are so wrinkled the creases look pressed in.

And with every failure, every **ERROR** message and dead end she dies a little more inside. Fractures a little more on the outside and loses what another piece of what little hope is left in her eyes.

Torchwood finally gives up on her and makes her take a leave of absence. The light dies fully then.

She stops talking, barely even makes eye contact with him and when he finally mutters that he's going to look for somewhere else to stay for a while, she doesn't even move to try and stop him.

There's a numb feeling to her whole mind now. Sounds are distorted and her vision oddly twisted. She knows he's gone but can't bring herself to try and stop him. It hurts too much to even see his face when she knows that the man looking out of _those _eyes at her isn't t the ones she wants to see. N.E.E.D.S to see.

She feels tears sliding down her cheeks as the door swings closed behind him- their icy hotness the only thing she's felt in days- but she can't even raise a hand to wipe them away.

She takes to her bed. Doesn't move for weeks on end except for the bare minimum of requirements. She only washes when her mum comes to visit and puts her in the bath like she's a little girl again and runs shampoo and conditioner lovingly through her hair- even as tears stream down her cheeks at what's happened to her once full of life daughter.

She's forced to move back into the mansion with her mum and Pete. She doesn't complain because she doesn't care. Nothing takes away the numbness.

Her hair is stringy and her roots have long since grown out- leaving her hair with various patches of chemical blonde and mousy brown. Her skin is so pale now it's gone past the stage of being white and become almost translucent. Her cheekbones rise sharply out of her face and her eyes sink deep into sockets ringed with black circles.

She eats when her mum holds a spoon to her lips, swallows when it's a cup. The rest of the time she stares at nothing- imagining where He is, remembering her life _before_. She makes up stories in her head- ones where he comes crashing through the dimensions and whisks her away with him. Ones where he never left her here a second time- where he didn't even suggest it and now they travel the stars together, a ring on his finger and a matching one on hers. Ones where the Cybermen never escaped this dimension and the Daleks never escaped from hell. Ones where she knows nothing of this world and is discovering **theirs **every single day. With Him.

Ones where she's happy.

She thinks she sees him if she moves her head too fast and feels a tiny spark of _something_ for the first time in months. She sits up and lets the sudden rush of blood to her head makes him vivid for a second.

Then he fades and the numbness returns and she can't help the sob that rips its way up her disused throat.

Her mother insists on changing her bed once a week. She never leaves it and it the sheets become stale quickly now. Normally Pete with hold her while Jackie works, cradling her weakened body like she is a baby. This time she has to stand- Pete's at work and Jackie needs **something** to do to keep herself from falling apart at the sight of her little girl wasting away.

She sees Him standing in front of her as real as He was that first day on the beach. Reaches out to touch Him and falls to the floor when her hand feels only air. Her mother helps her back into bed and with each quick movement or unexpected jolt she sees him for a tiny second.

She thinks she's going mad and finds she can't bring herself to care.

Pete drops the fork he's using to feed her and the spikes dig into her flesh- drawing blood but making him erupt in her vision clearer than ever before. She reaches out and lifts the fork as he starts to fade and rams it back into her skin.

Pete jumps from her bed in shock, grabbing the fork and shouting at her with worry in his voice. She barely hears him; He is smiling down at her; dorky glasses perched on the end of his nose and teeth gleaming in the dull light of her room. She feels herself smile back, the best she can muster and doesn't even notice Pete leaving the room and calling worriedly for Jackie.

They bring a nurse in to look after her. She's not to be left alone. Not ever.

But the nurse is careless, and she likes to chat to her friends when she's working- wandering around rose's room, touching her things and turning her back on her patient most of the time. rose picks up the knife from her food tray and stares at it with the faintest touch of curiosity- wondering. The nurse doesn't notice she's even moved.

No one notices the long red marks she makes across the tops of her arm. She doesn't even think about that. All she can do is stare in wonder as He becomes clearer and clearer with every new groove she marks into his skin. Sometimes his lips move but she can't hear what he's saying.

She doesn't care. Wanting words is why she's so alone now she thinks bitterly. It's the only emotion she feels now besides loss and despair.

His image starts to fade though, no matter how quickly she brags the knife along her skin. No matter how deeply she forces it to go. She can barely see Him anymore and the thought terrifies her.

She's left alone in the bath. She can see the nail scissors sitting on the side. They call out to her and she takes her chance.

The bath water stains itself a sick, watery red and the bubbles fizzle from existence as her blood flows sluggishly from her wrists and into the water below.

Her vision becomes blurry, and then perfectly clear as she sees him standing beside her bath- arms outstretched and waiting. A slow, lazy smile slips over her lips as her eyes slide closed and she lets herself fall into the warmth around her. Her smile never falters as he fades from her view one last time; a blissful feeling of relief flowing through her as she hears him calling to her through the darkness. She lets herself fall into it. She's finally going back to her Doctor.

The nurse's screams echo through the hallways of the house followed by Pete's wracking sobs. Jackie stands back and watches it all with a detached sense of relief. At least she's a peace now.


	2. Chapter 2

Reverse to The Flipside. The happier way it could have turned out. :)

* * *

><p>She tries to make it work, she really does. For <strong>his <strong>sake. But deep down, she knows she settled. And she hates herself for it. Hates herself with a loathing so deep she feels she can hardly _breathe_ around the choke hold it has on her throat.

A few words: forever, love, human and she gave in. Weak, selfish, B.L.I.N.D.

They had never needed words before, and she always knew how he felt. But all this one, this not-really-her-doctor, had to do was whisper a few to her and she betrayed Him. Kissed the other one and let Him walk away.

But she tries. Tries to smile, tries to kiss him without wishing he was someone else, tries not to wince when he hugs her; so similar but so, **so** different that she _aches_ with the loss of what's not there.

She knows he sees the lines of strain around her eyes where she tries to smile when she pulls back from kissing him, knows he's trying too. They both are. For **his** sake. This was his gift to them, but still, it's not enough and with every touch of this one's fingers, every breath that's not His on her lips, she crumbles a little more inside.

But still, she tries. Because that is her gift to Him. He needed her to do this, and she owes it to him to try and make it work.

She tries to think of them as twins instead of as the same man. Because they're NOT the same, no matter what He promised her; this one is angrier, darker and with less mercy than her Doctor. Almost like her old Doctor, and that thought helps.

She loved that doctor too. It was different to how she loved Her Doctor now, a calmer, deeply simmering love, but she did love him. And maybe she can love this one too. Eventually.

Counting the ways they are the same isn't helping her, its just reminding her of what isn't there anymore so she stops doing it. It isn't easy at first, every time she glances up at him she sees Him first of all and then reality hits and that quiet pang of disappointment follows. But she keeps trying, tries to see new things about this man: how he Loves to watch the sunset every night- waiting patiently for the stars to appear and then turning around and smiling slightly at her. He's not bitter and that surprises her, he _likes_ living as a human, even though she can see the wistfulness and envy in his eyes when he looks at the stars. It eases her guilt a little that she still wishes she could be flying through them too. But it's something, a small connection between them as they are now so she takes it and stands beside him at the window each night. And when he takes her hand she doesn't flinch and doesn't try to pull away.

He makes the effort to dance with her whenever they are at party because he knows she loves it and they never got enough chances to do it _before_. She laughs as he spins her around madly to the fast songs, and her eyes mist over as she stares at him during the slower ones: this man and The Doctor and the Other Doctor all merging together in front of her eyes. He is slowly burrowing his way into her heart and she realises she may just be able to love this one too after all.

The day she looks up and sees only his face staring back at her she cries. He sits beside her, tense like he hasn't been in months and with the stormy expression that reminds her so much of her first doctor that she buries her face in his neck and doesn't let go until all her tears are gone and he's relaxed down on the bed beside her.

It gets easier after that. There's only one man in her vision now, not two and while the realisation makes her ache a little inside sometimes she can live with it. This man, her John is as different to The Doctor as a twin. They're different people and she finds she doesn't mind that like she used to. There's enough of both the men she's loved before in him to make her put up with his occasional temper tantrum and to make her laugh in reminiscence at his occasional 'fashionable' moment.

And he brings so much more to their life; so much that marks him as John. Not Doctor. The way he chatters on about his work from torchwood, all animated hands and not too wide grins and slightly condescending tone as he tells her about their "scientists".

He's a curious mix Her John, so basely male and human sometimes she wants to dissolve into laughter and never stop: like when she sees him sitting around outside the shops, chatting morosely with all the other boyfriends about the tortures of taking their girlfriends shopping. But he still has his Alien side to him too, the side that makes her smile the most gently; the one that can spout on for hours in language she's never going to understand, about all the tech at work and the way the scientists are all 'blundering silly apes'

But she loves him now, she knows she does. She loves his mix of dark, brooding angst when something is bothering him and he can't work it out, to his almost hyperactive excitement when they're going out somewhere and he wants to show her off. She loves his gentle and calm way of lying on the sofa; back propped up against it and feet tangled with hers as he reads a book and she lies against his chest- half asleep with his fingers combing through her hair.

It's not as exciting and amazing as she once thought her life would always be, but she can't think of any better way to live sometimes than with someone who's loved her across three lifetimes and she's loved in return. It may be human and 'chips' but there are still enough explosions and the occasional global crisis with torchwood to keep from ever being bored. And when there isn't, there's John: making a mess of his lab downstairs and concocting weird and wonderful foods for her to try, claiming they make them exactly like this on such and such a planet. She smiles and warily takes a bite and waits for herself to turn green or her face to turn red. But she loves her life, loves the mad normality of it all.

And when she's lying in bed at night, curled up beside the man she thinks she may just love the most out of them all, she's happy.

She melts into kisses now, flings her arms around John's neck to make them last longer, runs her fingers through that _amazing_ hair and tugs just enough to make him groan.

There are no strain lines around her eyes when he touches her, only one or two laughter ones beginning to creep into her skin. She loves the feel of his fingers smoothing over her hair or ghosting over her cheek. She curls into the feel of his body late at night and doesn't want to let go when morning comes.

And the lingering guilt she once felt has long since melted away under his gaze. _He_ wanted her to be happy more than anything else in life, more even than his own happiness. And he wanted this life for her, saw how it could be if she let it, because she knows he could never have given her this. Always too many lives to save and wars to stop and threats to fight to be able to phone into work and cancel for the day, just to stay in bed with her.

This life was his ultimate gift to her, and she's determined to live it to the full.


End file.
